Women’s Cricket League (WCL) to be launched in India

To encourage, promote and provide equal exposure and platform to women cricketers like men, India’s first ever Women Cricket League (WCL) has been formed following the footsteps of Australia’s women’s Big Bash League (BBL). The league is scheduled to be launched on March 8, coinciding with International Women’s Day.

India’s first ever Women Cricket League (WCL) is considered as an earnest endeavour to provide women cricketers in India equal opportunities and acknowledgement at par with their male counterparts.

The league will help to produce a large pool of talented Indian women players to play at the National and International levels. It will also identify the hidden talent in women and take them to the highest pedestals like other sports. It will engage hundreds of millions of passionate women cricket fans and encourage them to start taking up sports as a career.

Women’s Cricket League founder Parul Jain said, “It’s important that young girls coming through can see cricket as a viable option to play at the highest level. The WCL #T20 League, is expected to be of the same repute of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Women Big Bash League (WBBL) of Australia in support of women. This will lead to greater interest in women’s cricket in India, which has generally been given much less importance than the men’s sport.”

He also added, “With many sports getting their own professional leagues and ever-growing popularity in the country, it is time that the women cricket league is formed. It is no surprise that the fierce team of eves does not get as much attention and opportunities neither from the sports bodies or the sponsors in India as the men’s team.”

Dronacharya Cricket Awardee and India’s first woman cricket coach Sunita Sharma said, “It’s been more than 3 decades since the Indian women’s cricket team has been formed and have won various matches globally, still there is hardly any acknowledgement of women cricketers in India. While men’s cricket underwent huge changes in the 80s and 90s, we were just languishing. However, I am enamoured that a start has been made and we hope to gain a lot from it. Lots of talent will now come to the forefront. We would like to see WCL getting as much attention in future.”

Ms Vandana Thakur, Founder, WCL said, “There is abundant talent in India and through WCL a lot of untapped cricketers will get opportunity and platform to showcase their talent. We shall be doing promotions at school and college levels so that players can come from small towns and villages just like Former Indian men’s captain, MS Dhoni.”